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Lavin Weekly: Young Adult Fiction, Workplace Dynamics, Grit, Prison, and the President

Last week our speakers covered a lot of topical ground. For the New Yorker, Eyal Press wrote about injustice in a Florida prison; Angela Duckworth discussed grit in Marie Claire; in Big Think, Esther Pereldiscussed navigating office life; The New York Times name-checked Angie Thomas (yet again!), and Matt Taibbi mapped the president’s path of fury in Rolling Stone.

1.) Author and journalist Eyal Press followed up on his shocking story from last year about the hidden mistreatment of mentally ill inmates in Florida's prisons with an equally troubling look at a death at the Dade Correctional Institution that remains overlooked and unpunished.

2.) Founder/Scientific Director of Character Lab and author of the bestselling book Grit: Passion, Perseverance, and the Science of Success, Angela Duckworth appears on Marie Claire's list of three CEOs refusing to “play it safe.”

3.) Relationship expert and psychotherapist Esther Perel speaks with Big Think co-founder and president Peter Hopkins about self-esteem, building trust, and "how the myth of perfection can hurt couples, whether that’s in businesses or in love."

4.) Not only is Angie Thomas's novel The Hate U Give flying off the shelves, it's also leading the pack as other YA novels with themes of racial injustice take up more space on bestseller lists. “Some educators see fiction as a particularly potent tool for engaging with volatile topics and instilling empathy in young readers,” says the Times.

5.) Journalist and author of Insane Clown President, Matt Taibbi returns to his home base in Rolling Stoneto shed a bit of light on the burgeoning Trump administration, populated as he says by “tyrants, zealots and imbeciles.”